FLASH
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Hamas and Israel blame each other for the attack that killed around 500 people, most of them children...
On Tuesday evening, a rocket hit Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza City, causing an explosion that completely destroyed the facility.
Hundreds of people died in the hospital bombings. According to the Health Ministry of the Gaza Strip government, led by Hamas, the casualties were 500.
Who launched the rocket?
According to Hamas, the explosion was caused by Israeli bombing. "The hospital massacre is a new turning point," said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, according to whom "the United States bears responsibility for the attack because of the cover it gives to Israeli aggression."
The Israeli army has strongly denied, at various times, that it launched any attack on the hospital. The first denial came on Tuesday evening: "From the analysis of the systems in the possession of the Army, a barrage of enemy rockets was launched against Israel and passed by the hospital just as it was hit," the army wrote in a note on social networks. "According to intelligence, Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed launch that hit the hospital," it continued.
During a press conference Wednesday morning, army spokesman Daniel Hagari explained Israel's position with images and video. "First of all, the hospital structure is standing, there is no structural damage and there is no crater. This means that the damage was not caused by an air strike," he continued.
According to Hagar, Hamas deliberately fired rockets with a trajectory that passed over the hospital. Overnight, the Israeli military also posted a video.
In the sequence we can see in the darkness what appears to be a transporter which then explodes high above the sky of Gaza, soon followed by an explosion on the ground. "Check carefully before you accuse Israel," the post reads.
The military later clarified that it was a sequence broadcast by the pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, based in Qatar. The Israeli Foreign Ministry then released an audio of what it says is the attack.
Hamas terrorists in their own voices:
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 18, 2023
Listen to the conversation between Hamas operatives as they discuss the failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital on October 17, 2023 pic.twitter.com/PUUuqE2Imu
Photos and analysis
Images released by international agencies on the morning of October 18 show the hospital structures after the explosion on Tuesday evening. The explosion crater appears to be shallow - one of the points emphasized by the Israeli side to exclude responsibility for the attack.
Other photos and videos, released by international agencies, also show how hospital structures appear to have been damaged, but not destroyed. Instead, several cars in the hospital parking lot were engulfed in flames.
A video released by Russia's Kremlin-controlled Tass agency showed footage from inside the hospital.
The first pictures and videos arriving from the hospital showed gruesome scenes, with hundreds of bodies lying on the ground, lit by torches in the dark night of the Gaza Strip, which had been without electricity for days.
Israel began a "total siege" on the Gaza Strip after Hamas launched an attack on Israeli soil on October 7, in which 1,400 people died and another 200 were kidnapped.
Update on the chapel at the Ahli Hospital in Gaza, the building lost several of its stained glass windows in the explosion, but otherwise appears to be intact. pic.twitter.com/LTnEqXe35V
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 18, 2023
The president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmood Abbas, declared three days of national mourning, speaking of "genocide" and a "humanitarian catastrophe".
Abbas also canceled a meeting scheduled for Wednesday with US President Joe Biden, who will be in Israel and Jordan on Wednesday.
Hundreds of Palestinians protested against Abbas in the West Bank on Tuesday evening and there were clashes between demonstrators and Palestinian National Authority security forces. / Adapted "Pamphlet" from "Corriere della Sera"
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